Looking how i can improve

[kiki]

I've posted some of my photography below,and would love any opinions,on how I could improve,or if by chance,the photo is perfect. Thanks in advance. I'm still trying to figure out how to just post a link to my photo gallery..

 

[JBrown]

Kiki,

Good start you are already ahead of a lot of people. Looks like you have some really good variation in your subject matter around you. From looking at your photos there is one thing that always catches my eye is focus. Most of your pictures seem slightly out of focus or you are cropping significantly. A tip that helped me when I first started was to also shoot with only one focus point to make sure I was nailing what I wanted to focus on. Of course I'm using sharper lenses, but here is a picture of my furball and a wildlife shot to show the difference in sharpness. Also attached is a full size and crop of the same image for comparison. There could be some other changes, but the number one thing to focus on when you are starting out is to have things in focus. The automatic setting of focus on the camera does a poor job unless you know what you are doing with it.

Hope these help give you some ideas.

 

[Overread]

before I get a moment to really have a look at the photos have a read of the two links in my signature about critique. I think you would find them informative and also give you some ideas as to what you can both do yourself and what you can provide for us which will greatly enhance the critique you can get from your photos and will help accelerate your learning.

 

[kiki]

Kiki,

Good start you are already ahead of a lot of people. Looks like you have some really good variation in your subject matter around you. From looking at your photos there is one thing that always catches my eye is focus. Most of your pictures seem slightly out of focus or you are cropping significantly. A tip that helped me when I first started was to also shoot with only one focus point to make sure I was nailing what I wanted to focus on. Of course I'm using sharper lenses, but here is a picture of my furball and a wildlife shot to show the difference in sharpness. Also attached is a full size and crop of the same image for comparison. There could be some other changes, but the number one thing to focus on when you are starting out is to have things in focus. The automatic setting of focus on the camera does a poor job unless you know what you are doing with it.

Hope these help give you some ideas.

Yes,it helps a lot,thank you. I always think that when i am taking a pic that i am focusing on what i want to be the center of attention. Could you please tell me which photos seem mildly unfocused,and which ones seem well focused to you.

 

[kiki]

before I get a moment to really have a look at the photos have a read of the two links in my signature about critique. I think you would find them informative and also give you some ideas as to what you can both do yourself and what you can provide for us which will greatly enhance the critique you can get from your photos and will help accelerate your learning.

Thank you,all very useful information. I will work on that. First day on here,still learning how everything works,as well as still learning about photography. From now on when i post pics for critique,I will use your guidline. Thank you..

 

[soufiej]

Just so we know, which shots were taken with the camera on full "auto"? And which had your creative input to the settings?

Without looking at your camera, do you know what "format" you are using? Jpeg? Or RAW (NEF on Nikon)?

 

[Eventer]

They all seem to be mildly OOF to me accept for maybe the last truck one - but I'm looking on my shitty work computer screen so possibly not a great judge.
However I love the colours of the Bee ones and its a pity the focus is off! havent looked at the exif data but maybe picking up a 50mm might be fun for you to play around with

 

[Overread]

Horses:
70-300m lens at 70mm
f4
1.60sec
ISO 2800

Thoughts;
1) You've got the eye looking at you and appears to be in-focus; eyes in focus of the primary subject (in cases where you've more than one) is key in wildlife photography and a very hard "guideline" to not use. That the horse is looking right at you is a great bonus for this shot, there's even a nice highlight spot in the eye so all good there! The ears pricked up is a good bonus for equines, its an oft looked for element by horsey people so good points there.

You've composed generally well, the post at the bottom is annoying, but at the same time you can't really remove it without losing the mouth on the other horse in the background - although you could close crop around the single key horse if you wished.

Settings wise its gone well, f4 is a decent aperture for a horse considering how thick their heads are.
1/60sec is a risky shutter speed for this, at that speed you're running a higher risk of motion blur from the subjects motions or wind blowing the hair. That said it doesn't seem to be a problem here so looks like you caught a nice calm moment. I'd probably have wanted to be faster on the shutter speed if shooting the horses in general, but for a calm moment these settings have served you well.

Sharpness might be improved, but I've a feeling part of what we are seeing is that you've maybe resized and not sharpened both before and after resizing (resizing reduces sharpness so its always best to do a second run of sharpening after resizing before uploading to the net.

Two Bee shots
shot 1
lens 70-300mm at 300mm
f5.6
1/800sec
ISO 400

shot 2
lens 70-300mm at 300mm
f5.6
1/1000sec
ISO 400

This is hard photography you have here, the colours and exposures look good and solid, but your challenging yourself a lot here to get this kind of shot. A bee is a tiny subject that moves fast and their wings beat at an insane rate so getting a clear sharp shot (even with wings blurred) is tricky. It looks like you are on the right path though, appears that you caught both near flowers and tpyically for this you want to base yourself near a popular flower and let the bees come to you rather than chase them around the field.
Otherwise single point AF and a lot of practice is what you need. Sometimes you might find it easier to pre-focus (focus the lens ready for the shot) before and then let the bee move into the point of focus and then hit the shutter button (ergo use manual focusing). This speeds things up since you're not waiting for the AF to get a lock you're using your own eyes and the fast shutter on the DSLR to let it capture the moment. It's still darn tricky and this is one area where a burst of a few shots is very helpful (sometimes you might pre-empt the moment and shoot just a little early in the hope a latter frame captures THE moment).

Purple Flower shot
70-300mm lens at 220mm
f5
1/500sec
ISO 1000

I like this shot. It looks sharp (even after resizing) and the bright vibrant colours work well with the more cold and muted background. Overall I think this is one of your stronger shots; compositionally I've no strong feelings - I like it that much I can say but I can't see any clear ways to improve.
Settings wise you could probably have dropped a fair chunk of the shutter speed and thus used a lower ISO (or a slightly smaller aperture - bigger f number - but considering what you already have I don't see a need for increasing the depth of field in this shot). At 220mm the rule of thumb for hand holding (1/focal length of lens) would leave you at 1/200sec and getting a sharp shot without handshake blur (according to theory - different people and oft different gear will vary this value - some will be faster and some slower). If you were tripod mounted you could have gone slower still (but don't go too slow as otherwise even light wind or you moving/breathing nearby will give you subject motion blur.

 

[kiki]

Kiki,

Good start you are already ahead of a lot of people. Looks like you have some really good variation in your subject matter around you. From looking at your photos there is one thing that always catches my eye is focus. Most of your pictures seem slightly out of focus or you are cropping significantly. A tip that helped me when I first started was to also shoot with only one focus point to make sure I was nailing what I wanted to focus on. Of course I'm using sharper lenses, but here is a picture of my furball and a wildlife shot to show the difference in sharpness. Also attached is a full size and crop of the same image for comparison. There could be some other changes, but the number one thing to focus on when you are starting out is to have things in focus. The automatic setting of focus on the camera does a poor job unless you know what you are doing with it.

Hope these help give you some ideas.

I always thought that I was in focus,I guess I wasn't. Great photos that you posted,crisp,clear,beautiful. Being on here today has been very eye opening for me, and has made me realize how much I do not know,and how much I have to learn. I always thought my photos were pretty good.obviously,I was wrong. All the critiques were duly noted and appreciated.

 

[kiki]

Horses:
70-300m lens at 70mm
f4
1.60sec
ISO 2800

Thoughts;
1) You've got the eye looking at you and appears to be in-focus; eyes in focus of the primary subject (in cases where you've more than one) is key in wildlife photography and a very hard "guideline" to not use. That the horse is looking right at you is a great bonus for this shot, there's even a nice highlight spot in the eye so all good there! The ears pricked up is a good bonus for equines, its an oft looked for element by horsey people so good points there.

You've composed generally well, the post at the bottom is annoying, but at the same time you can't really remove it without losing the mouth on the other horse in the background - although you could close crop around the single key horse if you wished.

Settings wise its gone well, f4 is a decent aperture for a horse considering how thick their heads are.
1/60sec is a risky shutter speed for this, at that speed you're running a higher risk of motion blur from the subjects motions or wind blowing the hair. That said it doesn't seem to be a problem here so looks like you caught a nice calm moment. I'd probably have wanted to be faster on the shutter speed if shooting the horses in general, but for a calm moment these settings have served you well.

Sharpness might be improved, but I've a feeling part of what we are seeing is that you've maybe resized and not sharpened both before and after resizing (resizing reduces sharpness so its always best to do a second run of sharpening after resizing before uploading to the net.

Two Bee shots
shot 1
lens 70-300mm at 300mm
f5.6
1/800sec
ISO 400

shot 2
lens 70-300mm at 300mm
f5.6
1/1000sec
ISO 400

This is hard photography you have here, the colours and exposures look good and solid, but your challenging yourself a lot here to get this kind of shot. A bee is a tiny subject that moves fast and their wings beat at an insane rate so getting a clear sharp shot (even with wings blurred) is tricky. It looks like you are on the right path though, appears that you caught both near flowers and tpyically for this you want to base yourself near a popular flower and let the bees come to you rather than chase them around the field.
Otherwise single point AF and a lot of practice is what you need. Sometimes you might find it easier to pre-focus (focus the lens ready for the shot) before and then let the bee move into the point of focus and then hit the shutter button (ergo use manual focusing). This speeds things up since you're not waiting for the AF to get a lock you're using your own eyes and the fast shutter on the DSLR to let it capture the moment. It's still darn tricky and this is one area where a burst of a few shots is very helpful (sometimes you might pre-empt the moment and shoot just a little early in the hope a latter frame captures THE moment).

Purple Flower shot
70-300mm lens at 220mm
f5
1/500sec
ISO 1000

I like this shot. It looks sharp (even after resizing) and the bright vibrant colours work well with the more cold and muted background. Overall I think this is one of your stronger shots; compositionally I've no strong feelings - I like it that much I can say but I can't see any clear ways to improve.
Settings wise you could probably have dropped a fair chunk of the shutter speed and thus used a lower ISO (or a slightly smaller aperture - bigger f number - but considering what you already have I don't see a need for increasing the depth of field in this shot). At 220mm the rule of thumb for hand holding (1/focal length of lens) would leave you at 1/200sec and getting a sharp shot without handshake blur (according to theory - different people and oft different gear will vary this value - some will be faster and some slower). If you were tripod mounted you could have gone slower still (but don't go too slow as otherwise even light wind or you moving/breathing nearby will give you subject motion blur.

Thank you for all of your insight,I have lots to work on!

 

[JBrown]

As with everything there is a learning curve. Photography is a very technical art at its core. However once the pure mechanics are learned in and out then it becomes purely artistic. The key is to shrink the variables starting off. Some of the modern cameras have very sophisticated and exceptional auto focus tracking systems, some not so much. I always suggest everyone start with a single focus point because it make it easier to know what you are exactly focusing on. Nothing worse than getting back to the house and wondering, was that camera shake? Motion blur? Out of focus?.

Also Kiki most of us have a long long way to go. There is a link to one of my favorite photographers who I would kill to be able to replicate Las Vegas Newborn Photographer Las Vegas Senior Photographer Las Vegas Child Photography She is worlds beyond my skill level and its only by seeing what is possible you learn how to grow. Best of luck to you!

 

[Tabe]

Could you please tell me which photos seem mildly unfocused,and which ones seem well focused to you.

0577, with the black dog and the man, is OOF. The right/near eye of the dog and probably the nose are in focus but the left/far eye and the man's face are out of focus.

 

[KmH]

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